Autonomic management of autonomous management systems

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9530110-B2
Application number	US-79911107-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 30, 2007
Priority date	May 3, 2006
Publication date	Dec 27, 2016
Grant date	Dec 27, 2016

Abstract

In general, the techniques of this invention are directed to autonomic management of autonomic management systems. In particular, the embodiments of this invention use a measure, analyze, and respond model to autonomically manage one or more autonomic management systems. By understanding specific state information of these autonomic management systems, embodiments of the invention may achieve target performance for the autonomic management systems through operations monitoring, analyzing current system state against target state, and modifying the configurations or resources of the autonomic management systems.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
receiving, at an autonomic management system manager (AMSM), monitoring information of a first autonomic management system (AMS), the first AMS managing at least one distributed computing system, the at least one distributed computing system comprising a plurality of application nodes interconnected via a communications network, the AMS providing autonomic control of the application nodes;
receiving, at the AMSM, monitoring information of the at least one distributed computing system;
determining, by the AMSM, predicted behavior of the first AMS when managing the at least one distributed computing system based on the monitoring information of the at least one distributed computing system and the monitoring information of the first AMS, the predicted behavior comprising the first AMS malfunctioning due to an insufficiency of a resource used by the first AMS;
preventing the predicted behavior of the first AMS by autonomically modifying, with the AMSM, a configuration of the first AMS, the modified configuration of the first AMS modifying the management of the at least one distributed computing system;
determining a root cause of an apparent component failure detected by the first AMS, wherein determining the root cause comprises determining whether the apparent component failure is an erroneous side-effect of the configuration of the first AMS.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
comparing, with the AMSM, archived events of the first AMS to the monitoring information of the at least one distributed computing system and to the monitoring information of the first AMS, the archived events comprising information associated with a previous failure of a shared service; and
autonomically modifying, with the AMSM, the configuration of the first AMS in response to comparing the archived events of the first AMS to the monitoring information of the at least one distributed computing system and to the monitoring information of the first AMS.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein autonomically modifying, with the AMSM, the configuration of the first AMS in response to comparing the archived events of the first AMS to the monitoring information of the at least one distributed computing system and to the monitoring information of the first AMS comprises the AMSM autonomically modifying a rule of the first AMS, the first AMS using the rule to manage the at least one distributed computing system.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
analyzing, with the AMSM, license utilization in the at least one distributed computing system; and
prioritizing a resource in the at least one distributed computing system in response to analyzing the license utilization in the at least one distributed computing system.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
identifying, by the AMSM, a performance problem in the first AMS based on the monitoring information of the least one distributed computing system and the monitoring information of the first AMS; and
instructing, by the AMSM, the AMS to increase at least one resource in response to identifying the performance problem.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising identifying one or more changes to optimize a system management resource operating environment.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising allowing a user to adjust a service level.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
predicting, by the AMSM, a future state of the at least one distributed computing system; and
preventing a service level automation breach from occurring by autonomically modifying, with the AMSM, the configuration of the first AMS in response to predicting the future state of the at least one distributed computing system.

9. The method of claim 8 , further comprising determining a value of the autonomic modification in terms of performance and cost of the changes.

10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
comparing, with the AMSM, the monitoring information of the at least one distributed computing system, the monitoring information of the first AMS, and at least one parameter of the first AMS; and
in response to comparing the monitoring information of the least one distributed computing system, the monitoring information of the first AMS, and the at least one parameter of the first AMS, autonomically reducing, with the AMSM, log level settings of the first AMS.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the root cause further comprises applying a set of backward chaining rules to a current state of the at least one distributed computing system.

12. The method of claim 1 , further comprising identifying one or more changes to the configuration of the first AMS to prevent the first AMS from erroneously identifying a component failure.

13. The method of claim 1 , further comprising approving changes identified by a set of rule engines when the changes do not conflict.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein autonomically modifying the configuration of the first AMS comprises using a plug-in to modify the configuration of the first AMS.

15. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving monitoring information that indicates a current state of a second distributed computing system, wherein the second distributed computing system comprises a plurality of application nodes interconnected via a second network and a second autonomic management system to provide autonomic control of the application nodes of the second distributed computing system;
analyzing the current state of the second distributed computing system against a target state of the second distributed computing system; and
autonomically modifying a configuration of the second autonomic management system to decrease a difference between the current state and the target state of the second distributed computing system.

16. A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions for causing a programmable processor to:
receive, at an autonomic management system manager (AMSM), monitoring information of a first autonomic management system (AMS), the first AMS managing at least one distributed computing system, the at least one distributed computing system comprising a plurality of application nodes interconnected via a communications network, the AMS providing autonomic control of the plurality of application nodes;
receive, at the AMSM, monitoring information of the at least one distributed computing system;
determine, by the AMSM, predicted behavior of the first AMS when managing the at least one distributed computing system based on the monitoring information of the at least one distributed computing system and the monitoring information of the first AMS, the predicted behavior comprising the first AMS malfunctioning due to an insufficiency of a resource used by the first AMS;
prevent the predicted behavior of the first AMS by autonomically modifying, with the AMSM, a configuration of the first AMS, the modified configuration of the first AMS modifying the management of the at least one distributed computing system;
determine a root cause of an apparent component failure detected by the first AMS, wherein determining the root cause comprises determining whether the apparent component failure is an erroneous side-effect of the configuration of the first AMS.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 16 , further comprising instructions for causing the programmable processor to:
compare, with the AMSM, archived events of the first AMS to the monitoring information of the at least one distributed comp

Assignees

• Allen Donald M
• Emeis Mark W
• Engquist James D
• Jackson Jerry R
• Murrish Randall L
• Ca Inc

Inventors

• Allen Donald M
• Emeis Mark W
• Engquist James D
• Jackson Jerry R
• Murrish Randall L

Classifications

• G06F16/00

  Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor · CPC title

• G06N5/042

  Backward inferencing · CPC title

• G06Q10/06 Primary

  Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling · CPC title

• G06F17/30

  Physics · mapped topic